Into the World

I found myself in some redundant dismay in finding that an influential, syndicated columnist, professor at Georgetown University, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, E. J. Dionne (I assume a Catholic?), has apparently little knowledge of what drives man to sin. Oops! He’s in Wikipedia too, and the credentialed salutations of his experiences are lengthy. All the better, as with this immense resume he is so much better the perfect illustration of the difficulty in recognizing and understanding moral blindness. (I mean, if everyone of substance is blind to moral responsibility, how would you know it?)Continue reading The Real Apple

I happened upon a blog post during a recent and rare trip to New Advent; a Catholic site with an amazing assortment of subject matter and an archive of wonder. I say “rare” only in that I do grow tired of its futile emancipation of things incredibly shallow in nature. I can read only so many times, “9 Reasons Why Pope Francis Likes Vegetables”, before I want to throw up my vegetables.

Anyways, having gone through the Catholic RCIA program in 2013, that’s the Rite of Christian Initiation for all of you non-Catholics, I found this post of good interest. I’d have to say in regards to my own experience with RCIA, that it was far less frustrating than the type of one imagined in this post. It was, nonetheless, similar with the writer’s experience in the fact that the program I went through seemed to offer up nothing as an examination of why I ever came to RCIA and the Catholic Church to begin with. What was my motive? Why the Catholic Church and not the Latter Day Saints or the Assembly of God? Had I been called or was I searching? Was there any metaphysical substance within me that sought the here-and-now, just as much as the there-and-later?

Progress, by definition as a noun, refers to the movement towards either a specific goal or simply the movement in a particular direction. There are a few characteristics to progress:

First; that progress implies towards, rather than away.

Second; that progress is necessarily imbued with the idea that any movement entailed in progress is for the benefit of the mover and not to any disadvantage. Words used in defining progress include: advancement, improvement, development, and growth.

Third; that any new quality achieved through progress is considered to be superior to the previous quality.

Progress, by definition as a verb, refers more towards the idea of the movement of an object or condition without the adjudication, at the same moment, of any subjective value of good or bad.

In the modern, secular world, the average citizen has lost the appreciation of just how fundamental religious identity is to our basic existence. The secularist – remote to the religious experience all about them each and every day – sees religion as a membership in an organization; a simple choice that can be flipped with an opportunistic lifestyle, a change in schedule, or a little enlightenment. The results of such a naiveté is just beginning to roost like gargoyles on the growing discord we call diversity.

But religion is not an organization with a human leadership that shops for designer bargains at a factory-outlet store. Religion isn’t just tucked neatly within the prefrontal cortex of the brain; ready to be affected by neuroplasticity brought about by human events. Religion has demonstrated that it is much more pervasive and prevailing in all human cultures; signaling that it is embodied within every cell within every human body. It is not likely to go away with a “shoo”, or retreat to its dog house with a “bad doggie”.

The concern for the rights of women has been, and still is, a central issue in our American society in 2015. Amongst the many “rights” that have been identified as critical to the freedom of American women, is the right to self-determination of what a woman can do with her own body; to include the aborting of a woman’s own fetus – a human life – should she believe it to be a burden and an inconvenience to her future decision-making.

And with a similar rise to national attention, the rights of homosexuals have also come to dominate the attention of the American society. The cause is similar: the right to self-determination of what a homosexually-oriented person can do with his or her own body; without restrictions from the societal and political opportunities of open and endorsed relationships in which the legal status of marriage brings with it.